Death and Flowers in the Delta
by jeffersonday
Summary: An account of the Vietnamese resistance to the invasion of the dead.


_Nguyen Ngoc Hoa is a small woman, barely above five feet tall. She sits in the traditional _ao dai _of Vietnam, a graceful young woman in a beautiful purple silk dress. She is demure and quiet, pouring two cups of tea as we sit in a quiet orchard. _

_A notched machete lies slung in her belt, and the two men behind her keep a tight grip on their AK-47s. _

What you Americans never remember about Vietnam is that your war with us was preceded and followed by even more destructive and significant wars. The war with the French expelled our colonialist oppressor, and after the war with America we went to war with our ancient enemies, the Chinese. Your war with us, your grinding vicious struggle to crush communism in Southeast Asia, wasn't even the biggest war of the half-century for us.

You joined a list of invaders: the Chinese, the Mongols, the Japanese, the French. All of them invaded, and none of them stayed. Vietnam can be occupied, but it cannot be destroyed. This is what the dead learned as well.

_How did the outbreak start?_

The first outbreak occurred in Ho Chi Minh City, of course. A Chinese businessman, some say, or a Chinese food product, or a Chinese immigrant. Doesn't matter exactly what, of course.

Saigon…that was a nightmare. You see, Vietnam had been heavily disarmed in the years after the war. Only the police and the military had weapons. The rest of us had nothing, not like your cities in America.

If the police had been deployed correctly…if they had sent in troops sooner…

[sips her tea thoughtfully]

I suppose I shouldn't be so hard on them, nobody really knew what was going on. But still, our leaders…

[voice hardens]

Those fat, Hennessy swilling, BMW driving bastards. They were too worried about protecting their investments, worried about a panic, about foreign investors withdrawing their money.

_That was their concern?_

They had seen video of your Great Panic, knew the type of chaos that could cause. They believed, rightfully so, that they could keep such a panic from breaking out. Control of the media, all the news outlets, everything. It was easy to see why they believed they could keep this whole crisis under wraps.

_And did they?_

Until the dead were right at our doors! Once one person in Saigon heard the moans of a _ma di bo, _everyone panicked. The grapevine in Vietnam is a powerful force, and within hours the entire city, knew that the dead were walking. Within a day the whole country knew.

Vietnamese people have always been scared of ghosts—we don't have the same fetish for the unnatural that you Americans have—and so the reaction was instantaneous.

_What happened?_

Panic. Panic and chaos on a scale and an intensity that America might be pressed to imagine. Saigon erupted into a chaotic bloodbath, with everyone trying to get out and authorities finally, desperately trying to contain the cities.

_Did they succeed?_

Brutally. There had been a contingency plan set up in the event that the cities became overrun. One of the last orders sent through by the government ordered the 'absolute containment' of Saigon.

_Absolute containment?_

Three army brigades stationed outside Saigon. No one allowed in. Or out. Fire upon sight. 9 million people, infected or clean, trying desperately to escape.

I wasn't in the city, thank god, but I heard stories. The soldiers opened up as soon as anyone was sighted. Bombs and bullets rained down on the roads, claiming the sick and the healthy equally. Soldiers ran out of ammunition, and they were torn apart—by both the _ma di bo _and desperate refugees. It was horrific.

[sips her tea]

Still, that was actually the one thing the government did correctly. The containment measures were deployed far too late, and they were extreme. I saw the aftermath, and it was horrible. But if they had let the infection run out of Saigon, then all of the South would have been irrevocably lost. That was the one thing those fat idiots did right.

Oh, and closing the border with Cambodia and Laos. I don't know if they foresaw the slaughter and chaos that would occur in those countries, but our soldiers at the border were able to throw the madness back. I wonder whose idea it was to station most of our forces along the border. Smart man. Probably got fired for his cleverness.

_Did anyone escape Saigon?_

Some did. Most didn't.

The ones who were able to get out were wealthy and connected, the ones with express flights booked through private planes to Da Nang and Hanoi.

But it turns out the plague doesn't care if you're rich. It doesn't care if you're a communist. It doesn't care if you're connected. In a few days outbreaks had started in every large city in Vietnam. All of them were out of control.

_And the rural areas?_

Surviving the crisis in the countryside was actually fairly easy. Remote villages, a long trek away from the city already, with plenty of distance between houses. Natural defenses in the form of chain fences and moats, with every house prepared to defend itself from thieves in the night.

As I've said before, Vietnam was almost entirely disarmed. But the families in the country were agricultural, growing rice and coconuts and other tropical fruits. They were very used to using farm tools.

_[she gestures to the blade at her hip]_

Who needs a gun when you have machetes?

If there had been a swarming invasion the countryside would have been overrun, but it was barely even infected. Those that straggled in from outside were easily dealt with.

Within a few months, most of the rural areas, especially in the Mekong Delta, were completely free of the _ma di bo._ The cities were still overrun, but most of the country held together. 

_But there were still problems…_

Oh god, the ignorance. In a crisis, people blame the unpopular groups. It happened to the Indians in the U.K, and to the Basques in Spain. In both those places the government was able to slow down things before they reached anything close to a serious crisis.

But in Vietnam? With such a tight knit community, most of the people poorly educated, with the reasoning hand of the government or anyone at all nowhere to be seen, it was a disaster. Some villages were restrained and trusted their neighbors. Others were not.

_What happened?_

Some villages blamed the Khmers, others the Chinese. Others blamed the Hmong, the Lao, the Tay, the Thai, the hill tribes of the central and northern highlands. Vietnam is a country of fifty four ethnic minorities, and relations with them have never been good. When this plague of the dead came up, many turned to blaming a curse from the Chinese, the Khmers, the Hmong, anyone.

They weren't wrong, it turns out, about the Chinese. But that doesn't excuse what happened in Cholon, the slaughter, the butchery. I can still see the children hanging up like dogs outside burning houses.

[shudders]

The Chinese were surprised, too commercial and accustomed to years of safe living side by side with us to expect our sudden flare of hatred. That slaughter…some were able to escape north across the border, although their fate there was probably grim as well. Others were sheltered by friendly neighbors. But for the rest? Like any nation, Vietnam has its share of regrettable moments. But this mass murder, it was the darkest stain on our history so far.

_What about the other ethnic groups?_

The Khmers fled for the border, disappearing in the jungles. The hill tribes disappeared into the mountains, breaking out old weapons they had hidden before the Americans left, always prepared for Vietnam's revenge.

We had contained the dead, but we were heading straight into a civil war among the living.

_Until you came_.

I came from a small town in the Mekong Delta. I had studied in Ho Chi Minh City, but I was home for a holiday. When the dead came my family did not panic. My father and brothers armed themselves with machetes, while my mother destroyed the bridge that led to our small farming home.

There were twenty that day, lurching through the moats. I stood over the tomb of my grandfather, armed with nothing but a machete, and killed six different attackers.

My family weathered that storm, killing them all easily. We were few in number, outnumbered and armed with a handful of machetes. We had no idea what we were facing, and we were terrified.

But we listened to our parents, did not run, did not back down. We were disciplined, and we were victorious. We could have held our home against a hundred, and stayed in the Mekong Delta for the rest of our lives.

_So what changed?_

I realized the solution to all our problems

Look at your America. The survivor groups, they didn't struggle with the dead. They all knew how to kill the _ma di bo_, how to take care of themselves. Their problems were within the group. Feuding, infighting. Without the police and the military to keep them in control, survivor groups tore themselves apart.

But I knew that Vietnam could survive in the chaos. I knew we did not need the law and the army to hold it together for us. I knew if I could get enough people to listen to me we would survive this.

_That was where the Children of the Dragon began?_

Yes. First in the Mekong Delta, then further north, into the highlands. I had a simple message.

_Which was?_

Family.

_Can you explain?_

All of Vietnam is our family. The Chinese, the Cambodians, the hill tribes, the Vietnamese, the foreigners. Anyone living in our border peacefully is within my family. And I would fight to protect them.

The thing you have to understand about Vietnamese people is family. It's what held us through all the storms of the past thirty years, and it rode us through this one as well. Respect for our family is the bond that has kept us together through wars, through corrupt governments and oppressive officials. You obey your father, you obey your mother, and you without question obey your grandmother and grandfather.

And that was the thing. These older members of the family, some of them had lived through three major wars.

You think that Vietnamese people obey their elders normally? Imagine you're a fifteen year old boy, Raised on Vietnamese traditions, but hungering for American goods. KFC, American idol, Gucci and Chanel.

But no matter how Westernized you got, there was always a little voice you couldn't quite shut out. The voice would remind you of the stories you heard about grandfather and grandmother, how they fought off American and French soldiers, hiding in the jungle, existing on taro roots and rainwater.

Then the dead come. And your grandfather straightens up, pins on his old medals, pulls out a machete and tells you to put some _ma di bo _back in the grave. Better believe you listen!

So it was them, the old, that I had to convince.

_How did you do it?_

Like I said, a simple message. And I proved that I knew what I was doing. Clean your province and people in the next province pay attention. Win the Mekong and the highlands start to listen to you. It also helped that I was a woman.

_How did that help?_

Because I could appeal to Vietnamese women. the men who get families into trouble, and the women pull them out.

Us dainty, graceful, skinny little things you Western men can't get enough of?

[smiles]

That's just the tip of the iceberg. No matter how much silk a Vietnamese women has on top, she is pure steel at her core. We run the money, we run the families. The men can talk, but the women act. And when you get between a Vietnamese mother and her family…not even the dead could survive that.

_And the legend…_

Oh my. [Blushes.] I had nothing to do with that.

_Can you tell me?_

There is a legend in our history about the Trung sisters. They led a rebellion against the Chinese two thousand years ago from the back of an elephant, driving the Chinese before them. Every child knows the story of Hai Ba Trung, the two Trung sisters.

_And they called you…_

Ba Trung. A Trung sister, come back to life. [Blushes]. It's embarrassing, really. But if it helped them follow me, well it was worth it.

_Were there any issues?_

Oh, of course. Some idiots still thought it was time to settle their differences. An army of the dead in our country, and they still wanted to go kill their neighbors over an old debt, an imagined slight. Unacceptable.

_What did you do?_

I executed any families who fought against each other. If you killed another living person without just cause I would execute your entire family.

_That seems…harsh._

[stares into my eyes, unblinking. The men behind her tighten their grips on their AK-47s]

Sometimes a mother must be stern.

_I…I see. What happened next?_

We spread north from the Delta, clearing whole provinces as we went. We purged Saigon, a battle that took weeks. Fighting in the slums was a nightmare, the dead hiding inside every collapsed building, every narrow alley. Eventually we burned the outlying slums.

When the flames had settled we walked in and exterminated the dead.

After Saigon things progressed much quicker. We moved further north, joining resistance movements all along the countryside. We reached out to the highland villages. That took a while, for them to come over to our side. But they did eventually.

We retook Nha Trang, Hue, Da Nang, Vinh. We spread north and west, and as more people heard about us more came to our banner. Eventually we reached the capital of our country.

The battle for Hanoi was as bad as Saigon. The outbreak was full-scale and complete. We fought for Hanoi one inch at a time, cleansing the city with blades and fire. When we were almost overrun we would form what you would call a "Raj-Singh." Shoulder to shoulder with your brothers and sisters, blades in your hands. The enemy so close you could count their rotting teeth.

[smiles immodestly]

It was exhilarating.

After a month, we finally retook the city.

We called ourselves _Con Cua Long_, The Children of the Dragon. A myth holds that Vietnam was created by a dragon who came to rest in the cool mountains of Hanoi. We are all children of the dragon. The Khmers, the Hmong, the Chinese, the Vietnamese. We were all born from strength and fire. And this is our country.

_But you didn't stop at Vietnam, did you?_

What do you mean?

_The incursions into Laos, Cambodia…There are rumors of the Children of the Dragon moving into China…_

Oh, that. Laos and Cambodia had basically collapsed. No real government, no armed resistance. Pockets of survivors huddling around a country run by the dead.

I couldn't let that exist on our borders. We launched expeditions into Cambodia and Laos to pacify the country. And China…

[pauses]

No truth to that. Besides, the Chinese have bigger issues on their hand.

_So you have expanded into the rest of Southeast Asia, and may be moving into Southern China._

[says nothing]

_How do you think the rest of the world will react?_

[smiles, sips her tea]

Haven't you Americans learned not to meddle with Vietnam by now?


End file.
